Updated:2024-10-16 03:33 Views:121
For over 20 years Florida school board races have been non-partisan22fun, but voters will have a chance this election season to once again place party labels on school board candidates.
Placed on the November ballot by state lawmakers, Amendment 1 aims to make school board races across the state partisan, specifically at a time where schools have become a political battleground in Florida.
State Rep. Spencer Roach, a Republican from North Fort Myers, sponsored the resolution that pushed the proposed constitutional amendment onto this year’s ballot. He said the proposal aims to provide more information about school board candidates to voters.
“It’s not about advancing the prospects of Republicans or Democrats,” said Roach. “If this becomes law, in some red counties it’s going to mean that more Republicans get elected and in some blue counties it’s certainly going to mean more Democrats get elected. My intention in filing the bill was not to put an advantage for one political party over another, rather I would say my motivation is transparency.”
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If 60% of voters support the ballot question, it would return Florida to an era when school board candidates ran under party labels. It would reverse a change that voters made a quarter-century ago by passing an amendment in 1998 that required candidates to run without party labels.
Those who oppose Amendment 1 fear that bringing back party labels to local school board elections will further politicize education in Florida.
Amid his push to ban some books and lessons related to critical race theory and other “woke” ideas in classrooms, Gov. Ron DeSantis has had a heavy hand in local school board races, backing more than 30 candidates in 2022, all of whom were Republican.
Senator Rosalind Osgood, a South Florida Democrat and former Broward County School Board member, voted against Roach’s proposal in the Legislature and said that bringing back partisan school boards is a “bad idea.”
“Without partisan school board elections, we can have healthy debate, healthy discussions, and then govern with all of that information coming together. Now people are going to be pressured to vote based on their party affiliation rather than on the issue,” said Osgood.
If passed favorably, Amendment 1 would take effect in 2026, beginning in August, when voters cast ballots for school board members.
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What do proponents say?Roach said that his push to get Amendment 1 on the ballot began after hearing complaints from his constituents about the happenings of their local school boards. He points to the COVID pandemic as the beginning of divisive, politicized school board conflicts, given that parents had access to see what their children were learning in school during virtual classes.
“Largely, parents were outraged in Florida and around the country about what they believed were a clash between the values being taught in school and values that they were teaching their children at home,” said Roach.
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He said that Amendment 1 would better allow voters to be able to pick candidates that were in line with their personal values. He said the Democratic and Republican parties have big differences in how they think about schooling, saying that there’s a partisan divide on topics ranging from school curriculum and school funding to bathroom policies.
“I think that the value already is that the average Florida voter is going to have a better idea of who they’re voting for, what their ideology is, what their belief system is, and they can evaluate for themselves whether this person who wants to manage their child’s education and whether their values are consistent with what they’re teaching the child at home,” said Roach.
Roach also said that the amendment would give voters who wish to keep things nonpartisan a chance to do so by being able to identify independent candidates who are no-party-affiliated, or NPA.
“If you truly are one of the voters that says ‘I don’t want any Democrat or Republican politics to influence education, I want to vote for an NPA candidate’, you should support my bill because now you’ll be able to know who those people are on the ballot,” said Roach.
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What do critics say?Osgood says bringing back partisan school board elections will move the focus away from the needs of students and make people’s political beliefs the center of the decision-making process.
She fears that school board members will feel pressured to vote on issues based on their party’s positions rather than what they believe is the best thing to do for students.
“When you’re on a board and you have conflict, it can be negative or positive in the sense that it forces you to discuss the different ideologies and then that discussion becomes a part of the framework of your decision making. But it becomes destructive when it’s entrenched in a certain political party,” said Osgood.
She pointed to COVID as an example of how bringing in people’s political ideologies onto a school board can be dangerous. For example, she said that as the COVID positivity rate rose in Broward, Republicans were pushing not to have masks.
Osgood believes that keeping school boards nonpartisan allows for more of a balance to exist and creates a “true representation” of all of the families within a school district.
“We have to focus on education. We don’t need political wars in our school board. Many people died during COVID because of political wars and all of the misinformation. They were forced to choose a side, instead of just focusing on making decisions that’s going to position all people to be as healthy and as safe as they possibly can,” said Osgood.
This story was originally published May 31, 2024, 4:21 PM.
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